By The Way, I Fed Your Cat
by UnstableIntention
Summary: "I get it ok? You're the best of the best, the king, the Alpha-thief. Frankly if I never hear you name again, it'll be too soon."
1. Chapter 1

_"You must be Stiles."_

Oh brother.

Detective Stiles Stilinski wasn't sure why, but he'd always figured that accomplished white-collar thief Peter Hale would turn out to be a total creep.

Less than three minutes in the man's actual presence confirmed his hunch - he'd been right on the money.

Shifting his grip on his department issued Glock, Stiles blinked rapidly, just to make sure he wasn't imagining the flirtatious edge to the smirk on the man's face. He hadn't slept in three days, had run himself ragged chasing the FBI's ninth most wanted man for the last eighteen months. He was exhausted, physically and mentally, almost to the point of collapse, but everything, all those sleepless nights came down to this.

And this?

This was Stiles winning.

At least… as long as it wasn't all some kind of weird, lucid dream, a waking nightmare brought on by insomnia and the inevitable sugar crash that came after a week spent living off of Mountain Dew and Cheez Its...

The way that Peter was running his eyes from Stiles' top to his toes was awfully lascivious - there was no guaranteeing that he wasn't hallucinating this whole thing.

And that was certainly a possibility, because quite honestly, given his physical state, he shouldn't even be on the streets. Legally he should have been forced into taking recuperative leave a long time ago, but everyone in the department knew how deep he'd sunk his teeth into this one, and even his supervisors had to acknowledge that there was no getting it away from him. This was one bone he wasn't dropping, and by keeping him on the payroll they could at least keep an eye on him.

"A gun Stiles?" Peter tsked, jerking his wandering attention back to the present with a jolt. "Is that really necessary?"

"You just stay right there and it won't be," he said in his calm, firm, ' _don't worry, I'm a cop_ ' voice.

"Seems rather rude, don't you think?" the man mused, the picture of repose as he lounged in a wing-backed chair, a heavy book open in his lap. Stiles never would have dreamed he'd finally catch this guy in a public library, but there he was, hidden away at the back of the building in a rarely-visited aisle stuffed full of thick volumes of archaic Latin. He wondered if Peter had stolen the chair and the little side-table, brought them back here himself to create a quiet reading nook located in convenient proximity to a back stairwell, a disused emergency exit, no cameras, no alarms…

"It seems hardly warranted."

"What?" Stiles asked dumbly, his attention once again drawn back to the matter at hand after taking a little tangent in less important directions.

Shit, when was the last time he'd taken his Adderall?

For his part Peter just arched an eyebrow, looked vaguely offended that Stiles wasn't listening as closely as he should be and maybe just a little calculating as he eyed the pistol being leveled at his chest.

"A bit uncalled for, don't you think?" he said again, nodding his chin toward the gun. "You've been following me for almost two years - when have I ever been violent?"

"You've threatened a lot of people Peter," Stiles said calmly, using the tone he took up when he was trying unsuccessfully to reason with his baby cousins, small, petulant children who were convinced of their own versions of reality.

Peter shrugged.

"Words," he said dismissively. "I've never left you a body have I? All this _Most Wanted_ business, it's just offensive." Licking his thumb, he turned the page of his book, slowly, casually, keeping his hands in Stiles' sight. "Lumping me in with the serial killers, the psychopaths. The _degenerates_."

"You're not exactly a shining example of a good guy either," Stiles snipped, and oh god, was he actually _defending_ the first eight guys on the list now? "You're wanted in more than a dozen different countries for theft. Art, bullion, cash…"

Peter snorted, flicked him a bored look from beneath his eyelashes.

"Let's not kid ourselves, Mr. Stilinski," he purred. "My face wasn't splashed all over Interpol because I stole a few million in bonds. No, it's the information that they're all upset I've stolen. The _secrets_." Pausing, he looked Stiles slowly up and down, considering. "A man could live quite well off of just one of them," he suggested, and Stiles felt his stomach roll.

"It's Detective," he said coldly, not bothering to hide his derision but careful to keep his voice down just the same. Best to do this with as little interference and as small an audience as possible. "And I get it, ok? You're the best of the best, the king, the Alpha-thief. I know you're work, I've _lived_ it for the last eighteen months. Frankly if I never hear your name again after today, it'll be too soon."

"That was hurtful Stiles," Peter replied smoothly, touching a hand to his chest just over his heart.

Stiles just sighed, weary with exasperation.

"Look, let's just get this over with," he said in a clipped voice.

God, he was tired.

Peter tilted his head, watching him in a way that reminded Stiles of a wolf considering a trap, but then he hummed in affirmation, snapped his book shut and set it aside.

"As we must," he answered, getting slowly to his feet as Stiles kept his pistol carefully at the ready.

Turning away, he set his feet shoulder-width apart and put his hands behind his back, palms flat together as if he were praying, and Stiles suddenly wondered if he'd been arrested before.

"Don't move," he warned, taking two steps towards the man before he freed his handcuffs from the clip on his belt and holstered his pistol. He should really wait for back-up - they were on the way, he'd radioed from the cruiser - but something told him that if he waited Peter Hale was going to slip through his fingers once again, disappearing like smoke. As it was the whole interaction had seemed too easy so far, too calculated, and Stiles wasn't going to give him any more time than he already had to plot.

Reaching out, he placed his left palm flat between the man's shoulder blades, surprised by the heat that radiated through the thin material of his t-shirt. There was strength to the breath of his shoulders but no tension, his muscles relaxed and easy, so he wasn't ready for the speed with which it happened, the terrible quickness of it. Snapping the steel bracelet tight around Peter's right wrist, it only took the space of a heartbeat for him to realize his mistake, to immediately regret underestimating the man who traded in world secrets.

Before he could breathe Peter had latched on to his wrist with a bone-popping grip, twisted him around and pulled him in snug to his front, liberating Stiles' gun from its holster halfway through the spin. One second free, the next cuffed to an infamous thief with a gun in his kidneys.

 _Shit_.

"Oh fuck, ok, ok, _easy_!" he yelped, trying to shut down the terror before it could send him into a panic attack. "Let's just stay calm."

 _Yeah right_.

"Let's not do anything one of us is going to regret," he continued, the babble bubbling up out of his chest uncontrollably. "You don't wanna do this. I mean, you said it yourself right, you've never been violent. Never left a body behind. Why break that habit now huh?"

"A solid argument," Peter murmured in his ear, and Stiles swore he could feel the guy's stubble on the side of his face, pressed practically cheek to cheek. "What do you propose then?"

"Um, let me go?" Stiles squeaked weakly, his heart racing inside his chest as he suddenly considered death for the first time in a serious, moments-away kind of capacity. "I mean," he chuckled half-hysterically, "I'm way too young and way too pretty to die today, right? There's places I wanna go, things I wanna see… I wanna go home and eat pizza and play Halo 3 and fucking _sleep_ …"

Peter hummed, a small, considering sound and Stiles felt stupid, stupid hope bite at his nerves like electricity. "If I let you go then," he said slowly, and god, yes, this time Stiles was paying full attention ok? The adrenaline flooding through him made sure of that. "If I let you go. You'll trundle on home? Walk away from this and trade a thief for a little sleep? You do look tired Stiles."

A pause, two terrible beats of indecision.

"You know I can't do that," Stiles choked, and it almost killed him not to just cave and promise the guy anything he wanted. It still might. "I can't do that with you walking around out there. God, I haven't slept since this thing started - if the Captain's not drilling me into the ground it's my own damned conscience nagging at me to get after you…"

"Quite the predicament you've got yourself into then, isn't it?" Peter muttered coldly, and then he was jabbing Stiles in the side with his own gun and forcing him forward towards the exit, keeping tight hold of him by the wrist where they were cuffed together. "Move."

"Come on, man," Stiles cajoled, doing his best to push back against Peter's chest as he was manhandled into a dark, dank little stairwell. "Do you really wanna kidnap a cop? Just come with me to the station dude, I'll get you a good deal! Tell them you were the perfect gentleman, gave up without a fight!"

"And be sent straight to Guantanamo for interrogation?" Peter asked, hip-checking the small of Stiles' back to get him moving down the stairs. "I don't think so. I'm not going to prison Stiles - you'll have to think of another compromise."

"Another… What else is there?" he yelped, his brain doing double time as his eyes searched for anything he could use as a weapon, anything that would give him the advantage. Peter might have the gun but Stiles didn't think he'd use it - the guy took a strange sort of pride in getting in and out clean, leaving as little physical evidence behind as possible and frustrating the ever-loving-hell out of Stiles in the process. Like it was some sort of weird honor code.

 _Crap, get out of this, get out of this_ …

"You're the clever one," Peter growled, annoyance and something like disappointment creeping into his voice as he wrestled Stiles around the railing to the next flight of stairs. "You were assigned to me for a reason; you've actually kept up the last two years unlike the rest of those federal idiots. You tell me."

High praise from a criminal mastermind.

Might as well live it down.

Casting his eyes heavenward, Stiles said a silent prayer and took his chance, waiting until Peter was off-balance and turning around the curve of the stair before grabbing the muzzle of his Glock, forcing it away as he drove his elbow back into the man's ribs and used the handcuffs to spin him hard. It struck him how silent the thing was, no gun shot, no shout for help, just Peter's hard grunt of pain as the air was driven out of him and then the sound of clattering as the gun went spinning off down the stairs as he abandoned it for fists. He thanked his luck that he'd guessed right - the guy seemed reluctant to kill him at least - but he apparently had no qualms about serious bodily harm.

Just barely managing to dodge a wicked uppercut, Stiles tried to get in a punch of his own, short, powerful jabs to the torso that would hold their own against Peter's greater bulk. There seemed to be a vicious sort of twinkle in the man's eye as came at Stiles that looked almost like amusement, and it made anger flare in his belly as he redoubled his efforts to take back control. But they were still cuffed, locked together, and so it was the kind of fight that was quickly taken to the ground, down and dirty, close quarters, elbows and knees and teeth. He needed space, needed to get a hand on his belt for his mace or his Taser or his radio, but in the brief flash of a second, that heartbeat of stillness as he groped blindly for a weapon, Peter locked his fingers around Stiles' free wrist in a painful grip and made to spin him around, back into the tight, controlled position he'd started out in.

Blood and panic pounding side by side against the back of his skull, Stiles flailed hard, lunging desperately for his last chance as he tried to take Peter's feet out from under him.

He wasn't so lucky.

The railing of the stairwell came up hard and fast and then stars were exploding behind his eyelids, pain searing hot and bright across his forehead before everything went black.


	2. Chapter 2

" _Little idiot_."

It wasn't the first time Peter had been handcuffed to an unconscious man, just the first time he'd been handcuffed to a cop.

Frowning, he crouched down in front of the young man, took his narrow chin between his fingers and turned his face up to the dull light at the top of the stairwell. Blood trickled slowly from a small cut along his hairline, a large bump swelling rapidly and already turning dark with bruising, but a touch to his wrist said that his pulse was steady, his breathing even.

Not so bad then.

Tilting his head, Peter let his gaze trace over the features of the young detective who'd kept him on his toes for the last two years, an impressive feat for anyone but even more so for a rookie out of some podunk California backwater county. He knew this man's history, had studied him intently after that first close call in Chicago so many months ago, but he looked a different man today. Thinner, weathered, practically exhausted. His face was pale as milk and his eyes marked by dark, heavy shadows, a testament to the insomnia he'd alluded to.

Not that that had made him any less of an opponent in recent days.

Peter hadn't expected to be found in the Virginian library, just a short drive from Quantico and settled smack in the middle of the FBI's own backyard. He'd been visiting its quiet catacombs for years and never been caught, hated that the little sanctuary had finally been connected with his name. He'd been thoroughly surprised by the appearance of the young detective in front of him as he read, slipping out from between the stacks with gun drawn, and he'd only just managed to hide that surprise. Nevertheless he'd been thrown, enough that cuffing himself to the kid had seemed the only resort left to him.

He hadn't intended to knock the man out, but perhaps it was for the best that he'd done the job for him. He was a scrappy little shit, Peter would give him that - used his elbows and his knees to all advantage, and he'd bared his teeth in a way that made Peter sure he'd be feeling them if he got close enough. It was unlikely that he would've been able to best Peter in the end who had breadth and muscle on his side, but he'd gotten in some good hits and while Peter enjoyed a good brawl every once in a while, he was hardly going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

No telling where things would have gone if the kid hadn't brained himself on the railing.

Peter was reluctant to cause grievous bodily harm on a good day - it was heavy-handed, lazy when there were other, cleaner ways to get what he wanted - and killing a cop wasn't exactly high on his bucket list.

But the static crackle of the radio clipped to the detective's shoulder spoke to the urgency of the timeframe he was working with.

"Shit," Peter muttered under his breath, crouching over the man once more.

He could just leave him here - cuff him to the railing and beat a hasty retreat - but that went against the grain and felt too much like running for his taste.

Besides, the man had said himself that he wouldn't stop, would just keep coming again and again until he dropped.

An outcome not far off, if the bruising under his eyes was anything to go by.

He'd clearly faired far worse than Peter had in their little chess game - evidence of the benefits attributed to loose moral character.

But time was running out, and the jumble of coding coming from the radio was getting frantic.

Snarling with resignation, Peter moved quickly, frisking the deputy until he found the handcuff key and freed himself. Stripping off the man's utility belt, he retrieved and re-holstered the heavy handgun that had gone skipping off down the stairs and draped the whole lot over the railing, silencing the radio before adding it to the pile. Hauling the unconscious detective upright, Peter watched his head loll on his neck, baring a smooth, pale length of throat that he imagined would mark beautifully.

Peter blinked, shook off the sudden flush of heat that made his skin tingle.

Working small white buttons with deft fingers, he pulled the man roughly out of his distinctive policeman's uniform, leaving him in a far less conspicuous pair of black tactical pants and a white t-shirt before using the handcuffs to secure his wrists behind his back. Ready to get the hell out of the net being tightened around him, Peter paused none the less, having long ago learned not to leave his fingerprints behind. Removing a thin, white handkerchief from the back pocket of his jeans, he did a quick but thorough job of wiping down any surface they might've stuck to, then grabbed the detective up into an easy fireman's carry and made his precarious way down to the bottom of the stairwell.

Ducking through a rear fire exit, Peter emerged into a deserted back-alley parking lot where a small, dark blue Impala waited - late model, no distinctive markings, all appropriate tags and plates. Popping the trunk, he rolled the unconscious detective off his shoulder and into the well with a dull thud, shoved at his long legs until the man was folded into the back of the car.

"After you, Detective," he muttered, and then he was slamming the lid down on him with delightful finality.

Not to worry though - Peter knew, from personal experience in fact, that there was plenty of air in the trunk to make it to their destination.

Sirens were screaming just down the street by the time he started the car and pulled out of the alleyway, but staying calm under pressure was second nature to him by now, and directing the car slowly and methodically through traffic was nothing more than standard procedure. He did duck his head a bit as he waited at a stop light, two cruisers tearing around the corner toward the library, but he needn't have worried - they were far too intent on their destination to be paying any attention to him. A glance in the rearview mirror showed him three more cars coming up the street from the other direction, agents and beat cops alike all pouring out in a flood, and then the light was turning green and he was driving quietly away, foot steady on the accelerator as he kept the needle just above the speed limit.

Careful, but not too careful.

It wouldn't be long before they cleared the library and realized that he wasn't there, not long before they found the detective's gun and uniform in the stairwell, and then all hell would break loose as they cordoned off a twenty block radius looking for his face and their missing brother in blue.

Peter wondered suddenly if abduction might not be a worse sin than murder. The search would be that much more frantic, that much more expeditious when they realized that he'd taken the young Stilinski, whisked him away for unknown nefarious purposes. In all reality he had no plan, not like the other agents would be thinking anyway - just those first, vague, bare bones of an idea to take him out of commission for a few days - nothing more than that had persuaded him to drop the man into the trunk and take him along.

And that worried him.

Perhaps he should just ditch the kid somewhere, stuff him into a phone booth or leave him in the restroom at a truck stop.

This was risky - he didn't know if it was worth it.

But it would be fine; he was already guiding the Impala up a ramp and onto the highway, hitting 85 with the rest of traffic even though the speed limit was 70. Less than ten minutes had them miles away and well out of range of any preemptive cop-stops, out of the heart of the city and past suburbia. It was getting rather rural in fact by the time Peter exited, and while the road he turned onto was still paved it was certainly set out of the way of the bulk of the populous.

Which was of course one of the main reason that Peter had chosen it for one of his state-side bolt holes.

That and the fact that it had a nicely insulated little basement; finished, windowless, and easily made inaccessible.

Turning into the graveled drive of the modest, one-story house, sided in dark green and trimmed with white, Peter pulled the car around behind the house and into the garage, the tension going out of his shoulders as soon as the electric door dropped behind him. It wasn't home, no place was really, but it was safe and that was certainly all he required of it. Everything else - the wine cellar and the pantry stocked with imported delicacies, the flat screen in the living room and the king-sized four poster upstairs - those things were just creature comforts, indulgences that he was rich enough to afford without thought.

He worked hard for what he had - why live like a heathen when his more singular occupation enabled him to cater to his more refined palate?

A dull thump sounded from the trunk of the car, jerking Peter out of a daydream that involved a quiet night of some excellent Michigan craft beer and a marathon of Jeopardy, making him to sigh heavily.

And he'd been so close to putting the detective out of his mind, the last five minutes of the drive just enough to smooth out the rough edges on his nerves.

But he supposed he should get the man settled before he came around.

Walking around to the back of the car, he popped the lid of the trunk, prepared to dodge whatever limbs came winging his way, but he was pleasantly surprised to find the man still unconscious, though clearly fighting his way back up. There was a scowl on his face, a deep line between his brows where they had pulled together, and Peter smoothed it with his thumb under the pretense of turning his face away, checking the wound at his hairline. The bleeding had stopped but he had one hell of a goose egg, already starting to go a deep mottled purple.

He only hoped the detective wasn't concussed - if he puked all over Peter's sheets he really would have to kill him.

There were certain things that 2000 thread count Egyptian cotton just couldn't come back from.

Grabbing the detective by his t-shirt, Peter hauled him upright in the trunk before ducking down, hefting him onto his shoulder and marching over to the interior door, glad, not for the first time, that he'd installed a keyless entry system. Using his hip to shove the door open, he walked the deputy through the kitchen, past the living room, into a little library at the back of the house. Neat, organized, comfortable… and then of course if you bumped the bookcase just right, it swung open into a hidden staircase.

Cliché, he knew, but practical as well.

He had a bedroom down there, a bathroom, a mini fridge and locked filing cabinets - everything he needed for a small, self-contained pod hidden away from prying hands or eyes. He'd never had to use it - he preferred the opulence and the airy windows of the upper levels - but it was there, and that was comforting. If he needed to disappear inside the house he could. It also made for a good place to tuck away a large, heavy safe, taller than he was and completely uncrackable - even to his standards.

Now he passed it, went straight to the twin bed in the corner, neatly made with a pale cream-colored duvet and chocolatey pillows that complimented the light, burnished bronze paint. If it weren't for the distinct lack of windows it could have been any bedroom, not a safe room hidden away in the basement.

Dropping the detective onto the bed he watched the man's body bounce twice before he began to twist, the grimace back on his face as he turned over onto his side, rolled his shoulders with discomfort.

He was coming around.

Peter briefly considered leaving the cuffs on - the detective had proved himself a fighter and he had no doubt that the young man would come up swinging as soon as he had his wits about him. Frowning, he took a moment to ponder that little problem, consider his options, sweeping his gaze over the detective's lean, hard body as he did so. There was a barred headboard above the bed against the wall; he supposed that would have to do. Digging the handcuff key from the pocket of his jeans, Peter turned the young man roughly, unclipped the metal bracelet from his right wrist and untangled his arms, rolling him onto his back again before attaching him to the steel of the bed.

His earlier pat-down assured him that there was no extra key on the kid. Peter could pick a handcuff blindfolded with both hands tied behind his back, but he had no idea if that particular trick was in the detective's repertoire. Should be, but he supposed that a man in his position shouldn't bemoan the shortcomings of law enforcement.

Eyeing the detective as he began to twist and tug against his restraint, Peter sighed with frustration when a bright smear of ruby red caught his eye, blood seeping into the sheets as the young man, _Stiles_ , it was _Stiles_ , rubbed his face against the fabric, eyelids fluttering as the small laceration along his hairline opened up again and started to trickle crimson down his forehead.

He was already regretting this decision, and not for the reasons he probably should be.

But Peter valued few things so much as he valued conviction.

At this point he was resigned.

Turning his back on the detective, who was mumbling now and starting to blink, shallow and rapid and groggy, he stepped into the bathroom to fetch the first aid.


	3. Chapter 3

_"Oh god. What hit me?"_

Stiles' ears were ringing like he'd stuck his head inside a bell and rung the damned thing. He felt dizzy nauseous, and he had the mother of all headaches hammering away right at the front of his skull, and still over everything, like a thick quilt putting a damper on the world, the lingering exhaustion he hadn't been able to shake weighing his limbs down like lead.

Squeezing his eyes shut when cracking his lids resulted in the searing pain of artificial light against his retinas, he wriggled a little, frowned when he recognized the springy surface beneath him as a mattress but didn't recognize the soft, silky fabric under his cheek. Those weren't his scratchy, worn out jersey sheets. Where was he? What the hell had happened?

Getting one elbow underneath him, he struggled to sit up, recognized the cold bite of steel around his left wrist in a flash of hot, copper-flavored panic. Heart pounding in his chest with the sudden burst of adrenaline flushing through him, he launched upright, yelped in pain as the skin of his wrist was caught in the cuff, his shoulder wrenched, and ten times worse than that, a sledge hammer collided with the base of his skull, sending his vision hazy.

"If you puke on my bed I'll kill you."

Nine words and the world stopped.

Just for a moment, the skip of a single heartbeat, but it stopped.

Because that was Peter Hale's voice, that was the man himself stepping into the room with a frown on his stupidly perfect face, and Stiles had no idea where he was but his gun was missing and his belt and his shirt and oh shit, _shit_ , he was handcuffed to a bed…

Flailing, Stiles scramble backward across the sheets, pressing himself into the corner and jerking frantically against the cuff around his wrist, so hard that he was lucky he didn't break the skin.

"Oh my god, I'm kidnapped," he moaned, the panic-babble rushing up out of his chest just ahead of everything he'd eaten for lunch that day. "Oh, no no no, li… listen dude, you really don't have to kill me, my dad is gonna take care of that. Believe me, he's gonna _bury_ me for this, if I don't die from embarrassment first, you…"

"Don't call me dude," Peter interrupted with a frown, taking another step forward and dropping a red metal toolbox onto the foot of the bed.

Oh god, _torture tools_ …

A fear-induced adrenaline surge had Stiles jerking backward again even though he'd come to the end of his leash, his arm stretched across the headboard as he tugged frantically at the metal restraint, pain stinging in his wrist.

"Stop pulling," Peter snarled, reaching out to wrap warm, rough fingers around Stiles' wrist where it was connected to the bed, ignoring his flinch but no doubt aware now of the rapid drum beat of his pulse. "Christ, you're already bleeding."

"Wait, what?" Stiles yelped, looking down at himself, taking stock and not finding anything. "What did you do to me?!"

"You did it to yourself," Peter scoffed, taking a step back, but it didn't help because he was reaching for the box again and Stiles' body automatically shifted forward, his knees drawing up beneath him in preparation for a fight before his brain had fought even halfway through the panic.

Peter rolled his eyes in clear disdain, obviously recognizing the movement, but then the box was open and Stiles felt bewilderment wash through him, the top pulled back to reveal what appeared to be an extensive first aid kit. Gauze, pills, needles and thread, and a tiny, square hand mirror that Peter held out on the flat of his palm, gestured for Stiles to take. No way was he reaching for that though, and he apparently realized this, sighing heavily before he tilted the thing, giving Stiles a glimpse of his own pale, frightened face, thin trails of blood both new and old running down his temple from a nasty lump on his forehead. Curious fingers came up to prod before he could stop them, and then he was hissing in pain, wiping blood from his cheek with the back of his wrist.

"So that's why I feel like I caught a wrecking ball to the head," he muttered between gritted teeth.

"Caught the railing in that stairwell," Peter corrected, tucking the mirror away again and pulling out disinfecting wipes, a packet of butterfly bandages. Turning back to face him, he grinned wolfishly, making Stiles' throat go dry. "Lucky it didn't ruin that pretty face. A broken nose is never quite the same."

"Speaking from experience?" Stiles gulped, but Peter just smirked. "What now?" he asked, shaking his handcuff and darting a glance at the door as his heart pounded in his chest. "You gonna kill me?"

"Not at all," he replied smoothly, and there was just a little too much sweetness in his tone for Stiles' liking. "I'm offended that you'd even ask such a thing - I've never killed anyone. I distinctly remember going over that point once already today."

"Then why am I here?!" Stiles demanded, fear shredding through whatever cool he'd started out with.

Peter's smile faded and he felt his stomach go tight as the thief watched him with a flat, cold-sort of interest that was chilling and strangely invasive. Bright blue eyes trailed over him and his gaze was like fingers on the nape of his neck, ghosting down his spine.

"A compromise," he said at last, carefully, like he was explaining things to himself as much as to Stiles. "I told you I wasn't going to prison."

"Right, so you thought kidnapping a detective would help with that little plan?" Stiles sneered. The panic was rapidly beginning to wear off, strangely enough, the underlying anger boiling up in its place and burning it away as fast as it was flooding through him. "You know I never believed the rest of them when they said you were fucking insane, but you're doing a good job of changing my mind!"

It was a lie.

He'd never listened when the other detectives, the cops, the media, even his supervisors said that Peter Hale was mad. It was an excuse, a way to humanize him, because how else could you explain the things he was capable of doing, his practically supernatural ability to elude capture when so many agents were combing the country, even everyday citizens on alert for his face after it had been splashed all over the internet?

Stiles had known better.

He'd been raised to understand that immorality didn't exclude intelligence, that murder more than anything often made cruel sense, and crime wasn't reserved to any race, gender, religion, or socio-economic status. He knew how to see the cunning, the intelligence, the quiet sort of smugness that Peter managed to emote whenever he let the law get close before slipping away again. There was no _real_ crazy in Peter's cookie, but that just made him all the more dangerous.

Still, he'd spit the words out with such venom that he thought he'd seen the older man flinch before his face shuttered, all teasing and smirks disappearing as he went cold and distant.

 _Right, Hostage 101 Stiles, don't piss off the kidnapper_.

"Sorry," he muttered, a poor, sullen attempt at placation.

If that was the best he could do, he shouldn't even try.

Unfortunately he needed to get out of this mess.

"No you're not," Peter replied, but the smarmy smirk was back and so at least for now he thought he might be ok. "Now hold still."

Shit, maybe not.

Lurching to the side as Peter reached for him, he came to the end of his tether with a sharp, biting jerk on his wrist, his eyes huge as he froze, back pressed into the corner with his arm stretched across the width of the little twin mattress as he kicked at the coverlet in his attempt to get away.

Peter rolled his eyes, tipped his hands open in a placating manner to show him the antiseptic wipes and bandages he held. He'd never been called a dumbass so eloquently without words before.

"Would you rather do it yourself?" he asked in a tone that suggested stupidity on Stiles' part and boredom on his own.

He didn't answer.

Didn't move.

Sighing, sounding terribly put upon, Peter once again raised his hands for emphasis, place one knee on the bed, and slowly, slowly leaned in.

With nowhere else to go, what could he do but pray?

He was surprised by the gentleness of the man's hands, though he supposed he shouldn't be. He did delicate work - lock picking, forgery, handling art that cost more than Stiles would make in a lifetime - but his hands were still large and rough with callous, strong. They held his chin tightly but not enough to bruise, cleaned the blood from the side of his face before moving higher, careful over the throbbing lump at his hairline though the antiseptic stung painfully. Stiles hissed and tried to pull away but Peter's grip just tightened, his gaze dropping to meet Stiles' with a warning glare.

"Don't," he said firmly, coldly, and it was a chill reminder of his current reality.

A heavy moment passed in the small space between them, but then Peter seemed to determine that Stiles had been cowed into stillness he leaned in again, dropping his chin to reach up and tape the sides of his lacerated forehead back together again. Flinching against the pain, he did his best not to pull away again even as his heart pounded in his chest, his breathing short and tight. As thankful as he was that he apparently didn't need any stitches, the dull throb at the back of his skull, the nausea sitting low in the pit of his belly, and the growing dizziness that threatened to double his vision suggested a mild concussion might be coming on.

That was bad.

Being cuffed in Peter Hale's basement bedroom was bad.

Sure the guy was hot but it was still...

Oh dear god, bad, so _bad.._.

"Don't be a baby," a low voice rumbled, and Stiles jumped when he realized he'd been muttering out loud. "You'll live."

He caught the mirror entirely by reflex, slapping a palm against his chest to trap it before it hit the bed. Peter had tossed it casually, turned away to trash the bloody wipes and dress wrappings. Keeping one eye on the man as he moved back toward the end of the bed, Stiles briefly examined the neat row of butterfly bandages standing stark white against the purpling bruise. It would do the job, as long as he didn't get gangrene down here.

Carefully, gripping it tight to make sure that his fingers didn't shake, Stiles extended the mirror back to Peter, who stood waiting at the end of the bed with his first aid kit all packed up. For a moment he didn't move, just stared at Stiles with those intense blue eyes he'd studied for so long in the tiny handful of grainy surveillance videos and pictures the FBI had…

Stiles wasn't sure what he saw but he seemed satisfied with it, taking back the mirror and tucking it away before Stiles had time to flinch. Snapping the case shut, he dropped it onto the floor and kicked it away, well out of Stiles' reach before he turned again, folding his arms and looking him up and down.

"Three days," he said, and Stiles felt his heart skip a beat.

"Three days till what?!" he yelped, setting off another firework at the back of his head, but oh _shit_ , that didn't sound good…

"You're going to stay here for three days," Peter elaborated. He didn't sound happy and that wasn't reassuring at all, but he pushed on despite the inarticulate spluttering sound that had worked its way out of Stiles' throat. "Three days, no more than that and no less. You eat, you sleep, you get back on your feet, and then we put a nice little blindfold on you and I'll drop you off at some back lot mini mall. We both go back to our own lives."

Stiles blinked.

That had to be the concussion talking right? That wasn't…

"I'm sorry, _what_?"

Amazing, what a single sigh could communicate.

Peter's said nothing nice about Stiles.

"Call it a vacation," he said sarcastically. "You need the sleep Stiles, I think we can both agree on that."

"Ok fine, but why are you doing this?" he argued, unable to fight the fact that he was practically dead on his feet at this point. How else could he excuse his current situation? "Seriously, why would you help me?"

"I'm helping myself!" Peter snapped, and Stiles quailed a bit before the man sighed again, scowled but relaxed back onto his heels. "If I'd left you," he said, much calmer this time, "You'd still be chasing me, either because of looming career consequences or your own pesky moral objections. This way we both win. You get some much needed rest and I don't have to go to jail."

Turning around, he strode across the room toward a piece of paneling, touching it just right to reveal a door that swung out of the wall. Glancing back over his shoulder, he paused for just a moment, his expression unreadable.

"Go to sleep," he commanded. "I'll wake you up in two hours - make sure you haven't gone from concussion to coma."

And then he was gone, the door disappearing behind him.


End file.
